THE third round of senior Great Britain trials brought victories for Oxford Brookes men in pairs and lightweight singles, writes John Wiggins.

In bitterly cold conditions on the 5km River Witham course at Boston in Lincolnshire, the men’s pair was won by the Brookes duo of Matthew Tarrant and former St Edward’s School rower Stewart Innes.

They finished ahead of Rio gold medallists Will Satch and Moe Sbihi, who were third.

Oxford Blue Pete Reed, seeking a fourth Olympic gold, is the only other of the GB men’s medallists returning for the start of the 2020 Tokyo Olympiad, but he is recovering from surgery.

Oxford University Blue Josh Bugaski, partnered by William Warr, came sixth, with Boat Race hopefuls Oli Cook and Vassillis Ragoussis tenth.

Brookes oarsman Peter Chambers won the men’s lightweight single sculls by eight seconds, with Jamie Copus and Joel Cassells fifth and sixth.

Meanwhile, the lightweight coxless four has been voted out of Olympics by world-governing body, FISA.

This leaves only the double scull for the 70kg men in common with the women’s lightweights, the group where Wallingford scullers again featured.

Gemma Hall’s second place split the Olympic double of Charlotte Booth and Kat Copeland, while Eli Piggott dropped from fifth to ninth – just ahead of Brookes’s Imogen Mackie.

Wallingford’s Brianna Stubbs and Flo Pickles (Oxford University) were both missing with medical exemptions.

l Club rowers were in action on the Great Ouse river for the Bedford Eights and Fours Head.

Falcon RC’s masters women, Naomi Sharma, Alison Salvesen, Alison Grunwald and Lil Cochrane won the D quad sculls.

Sharma, Salveson and Cochrane then joined forces with Abingdon RC’s Sharon Webber, Sarah Leeming, Fiona Dite, Nicky Simpson, Corinna Demmar and cox Helen Payne to win the masters C eight.

The City of Oxford RC juniors gathered their resources to race for the first time in the WJ14 octuple and won by more than 30 seconds.

The successful crew was Leila Stringer, Martha Stasinakis, Brona Ruiseal, Olivia Turner, Millie Grant-Forster, Eleni Wragg, Evie Tinegate, Abi Taylor and cox Hanako Takahashi-Johnson.

The girls missed victory in the WJ14 quad by one second and were also runners-up in the J15 quad.

But Maddie Stringer, Lydia MacKenzie, Elise Stretton and Freya Clempson, coxed by Evie Tinegate were victorious in the novice coxed fours.

Stretton collected her second win in the intermediate fours with Natalie Morgan, Becky Coleman, Annie Sharp and Takahashi-Johnson.